9th November 2010

Text

D’Oh! The story of swatching

You know, I should realize that if I take the time to actually swatch for something that perhaps I should listen to the numbers a bit.

I swatched for making the fella a long-promised hat. My gauge is a bit big because I’m holding 2 strands of yarn (Valley Yarns Williamstown) so I have 14 stitches over 3 inches on size 7 needles.

This means that if the fella has just under, say, a 24” noggin, then I need 112 stitches. So how many stitches should I cast on… 112.

How many stitches did I cast on? Well, first I thought I wanted a 3-2 rib, which needs to be a multiple of 5. So I cast on 110 and knit for a while. Turns out that 1. it doesn’t look as good as a flipped brim and 2. it was just a bit too small. (He deemed it fine but it was way too stretched.) So I ripped it out and then decided on a multiple of 4 for a 2-2 rib. For some reason I then ignored ALL the math I had done, rounded up by 14 stitches and started knitting. (That’s right, 124 stitches! Which would result in a 26.5” hat.) He thought it looked big but I told him to wait till I had more done to try it on. At work my coworker and I discussed the hat and then I looked at how much bigger it was. He tried it on last night and, surprise surprise, it is huge.

Now I have 112 stitches cast on for my 2-2 rib, which lo and behold was my original calculation. I bet this one will fit. Now I just have to decide if I like my cast on edge or if I need to redo that before I get any farther in.

*grumble grumble stupid genesneaky grumble*

Tags knittingMistakes